A Time To Dream. PENNY JORDAN
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Название: A Time To Dream
Автор: PENNY JORDAN
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
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‘Er—yes, of course.’
The bathroom was shabby and uncomfortable like the rest of the house. It was also cluttered with her personal toiletries, her make-up and her hairbrush, since it was the only room in the house with a decent mirror in it.
Perhaps she was being foolish and naı¨ve to be embarrassed as she thought of him seeing such intimate possessions, and she had no doubt at all that he would be openly amused if he could read her mind; but the idea of any man—but especially this man—using the room which she considered to be her most personal domain brought a tingle of dangerous sensation racing down her spine.
As he washed his hands free of the sticky wallpaper paste, would he visualise her in the small confines of the bathroom, stepping out of the large old-fashioned bath, her body slick and wet?
The shock of her own thoughts was mirrored in her eyes as she turned quickly away from him.
What on earth was happening to her? She had never had these kinds of thoughts before. Never. They both shocked and excited her, opening secret doors within herself which she had never even known existed.
‘The bathroom,’ Luke reminded her quietly.
‘Oh, yes.’ She told him where it was, and then hurried into her own bedroom. It had a narrow single bed, a small chest of drawers and a wardrobe that wobbled because it was missing one foot. It also had a tarnished mirror into which she peered rather desperately after she had changed her jeans and top for a more formal pleated skirt and a toning jumper.
She didn’t have a lot of clothes, and most of those she did own had been chosen with her job in mind rather than for attracting admiring males’ glances.
Luckily she had washed her hair that morning and it hung in a clean, sweet-swelling, shiny fall on to her shoulders. She frowned as she stared at herself, wishing despairingly that she was taller and prettier, that her hair was curly and her nose straight.
Then she heard the bathroom door open and she grabbed the jacket she had put on the bed and hurried out to meet Luke on the landing.
Was it her imagination, or did his glance linger for just a split second longer than necessary on the soft swell of her breasts? Was that why they seemed so oddly tender as though they had actually been caressed and aroused by the firmness of a man’s hands?
‘If you’re ready,’ Luke was saying politely beside her as she battled against the shocking wantonness of her thoughts.
‘Er—yes…yes…I am.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘TELL me something about yourself.’
She was sitting in the passenger seat of Luke’s car while he drove them towards Chester. His question unnerved her, tightening her defences. She remembered how, over the years, she had been subject to a great many unkind comments because of her orphaned state, especially when she was at school. They had hurt, those comments, leaving tender scars.
‘There isn’t very much to tell.’ She hesitated, her mouth dry as she fought with her reluctance to reveal her own vulnerabilities to him.
There was a small silence during which he gave her a discomfitingly sharp look before saying, ‘Or not much you want to tell.’
He was shrewd, she had to give him that, but then his job would of course incline him to look beneath the surface, to probe and go on probing, to query and question.
She was starting to feel uncomfortably conscious of how little she would want to be the subject of his enquiries. Not that she had ever done anything in her life that would make her of any interest to a private detective.
‘I hope that one of those things you don’t want to tell me isn’t that you’ve got a husband and half a dozen offspring hidden away somewhere.’
His voice sounded lighter, teasing, but even so the shock of his charge caused her to turn automatically towards him, denying, ‘No, of course it isn’t.’
‘So you’re not married then, or otherwise involved?’
The look he gave her made her heart turn over. Even though she warned herself that she was being a fool, exposing herself to heaven alone knew what potential danger and unhappiness, she heard herself saying huskily, ‘No. No, I’m not.’
‘That’s something else we share in common, then,’ he told her, but before she could question him, could ask exactly what else it was they shared, he was adding more briskly, ‘This looks like the turn-off coming up for the DIY place.’
It was, and the next ten minutes were mundanely occupied with following the steady stream of traffic, all of which apparently was heading for the same destination, and then turning into the huge flat wasteland of tarmac dotted with the multi-coloured metal shapes of the many already parked cars.
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